MX2007015559A - Electronic board having a translucent platform. - Google Patents

Abstract

FOR A BOARD GAME The present invention refers to an electronic board mainly used in board games which includes a sensor and LEDS manipulation. The present invention also includes a microcontroller for allowing a designated analysis to be performed by a program capable to interact directly with the rules and conditions of the game. A further purpose of the present invention is to provide a system which allows the user to interact directly with the processes of a circuit so as to manipulate the results and obtain a plurality of rules useful for exercising and/or training the mind.

Description

ELECTRONIC BOARD WITH TRANSLATED PLATFORM FOR TABLE GAME TECHNICAL FIELD This invention is found in the area of electronic boards that is mainly applied to board games with manipulation of sensors and LEDs. In addition to using a microcontroller that allows an analysis designated by a program capable of interacting directly with the rules and conditions of the game.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION In US Pat. No. 4,981,300 dated February 1, 1991, from the inventor Eric E. Winkler, a sensor capable of detecting the magnetic field of a magnet placed on the base of a piece on a chessboard was described. application was direct for this game in which communication between the player and the circuit was allowed. This patent serves to condition the allowed plays and to record the movements made. Unlike what is described in this document, the sensors serve to read the movements that will be interpreted the next turn by means of LEDS placed under a translucent board, which will take care of setting a series of conditions for the other player, This is a totally different game than chess, in which there are random and part analysis algorithms.

Other patents are inclined to read the pieces by means of infrared, photosensitive, movement sensors etc., but the point is; they only read and interpret the movements by means of codes and sounds, and do not show variables within the same board that influence the rules in real time with respect to the players.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention refers to electronic board with translucent platform for table game that allows a visible illumination, thus involves a novel application of the electronics that admits an interaction between the board and the pieces contained in it. For the description of this invention, it is convenient to define the objectives and rules within the board game to later explain the technical aspects based on the foregoing. Although the rules of the game are not patentable in this application, they are necessary for a clear explanation of what is protected.

The rules of the game are for two players, the number of pieces is given by a condition that is mentioned below, but always the two players must have the same number of pieces to meet an equitable enfranchment.

At the beginning of the game, the pieces of each player are placed at the end of the board, in this way it is intended to take the corresponding pieces of the player to the other end, that is to say; each time a piece occupies a box on the other end (of the opposite), as long as it is empty, it will achieve its objective and now they will have to manipulate the rest of the pieces. The player who manages to take all his pieces to the other end wins, in the case of figure 1, whoever brings his four pieces will win first.

Now, the movement of pieces is not given by a specific rule, it is not like chess in which each of its pieces has a particular movement. In this game, the movement of each and every one of the pieces is determined by the system, that is to say; with random algorithms the program of a microcontroller is responsible for manifesting the type of movement by means of LEDS (6) placed on one side of the board, figure 2.

Regardless of the number of boxes on the main board, there will only be four LEDs that will determine the type of movement, one will always be on, that is; a type of movement will always be selected for some player. This function is like that of a traditional die, but only that it is electronic to take advantage of the same random algorithms to show an unexpected result. The represented movement can be the displacement of the piece towards the sides (like the chess tower but only one square), corner (like the bishop), combined (like the king) or sideways but "jumping" a square (similar to the horse but simpler). The turns are alternated one and one, and inside each one, the player chooses which piece to move and where, but as long as the condition of the LED on (6) is fulfilled. Here the pieces can also be "eaten", but instead of being discarded they are put back on the initial end to try again, causing a kind of setback to achieve the objective.

GAME ALGORITHMS It is a single program carried out in assembly language, which is markedly separated by two main interrupts I NTO and INT1, the first is the button (13) of figure 3 and the button (12) is INT1 . The algorithms were separated in two to facilitate a little more the description since they are two independent functions of the whole system. Each belonging to an interruption: INT1 = MAIN ALGORITHM INT0 = SECONDARY ALGORITHM Each algorithm is carried out when its corresponding interruption is activated, INT1 for example is the most common since it indicates the start of turn of one of the players. The two algorithms are described below: MAIN ALGORITHM Each time a player starts his turn, he must press the button (12) of figure 3, with this the player tells the system that he must reanalyze the whole situation to process this algorithm, this system is able to detect the movements of each piece in real time, responding thus with the activation and deactivation of the LEDS respectively.

Depending on the number of pieces contained in the central area of the board (5) (not at the ends) is the number of LEDs that light up randomly on the same board. The more pieces, the more LEDs turn on. This proportion gives as results: random data that are manifested by turning on the LEDs of the central area (5), the amount of LEDs lit will depend on the number of pieces in this area, ie; the greater the number of pieces in the central area (5) the greater the number of LEDs that light up randomly within the same area (5). Also the button (12), is responsible for turning on one of the four LEDs of the extreme area (6), the ignition of this is random. In this way the piece is indicated as moving in the central area (5).

The sensors placed at the ends of the board of figure 5, detect the pieces, having as logic only two things: either they are in this area of sensors (8), or they are trying to reach the other side and they are in the central area (5). ), in this way the system knows how many pieces there are in each area. This avoided having an unnecessary amount of sensors for each box within the whole board since the purpose is the same.

These same sensors therefore detect when the parts are returned to their starting point (8), this gives rise to the LEDS ignition of the differential area (7) of Figure 6, these LEDs are turned on as follows: Each of the LEDs in this area has a symbolic value for the players, so they are also described separately within the same area reference. Having 6 LEDs separated into two parts, one for each player, only the one that manifests the value of pieces lost by one of the players, ie; If, for example, one of the players lost one of his pieces, he will turn on the LED (7.1) or (7.6) depending on the player who lost it. If for example; player A loses a piece, and player B loses three pieces, the system will recognize that player B lost more piece and thus will show some advantage to player A, in this way the LED will light (7.2), symbolizing a "2" for this player. The more pieces a player loses, the more points they will give to the other, these points can be used as extra turns, cards, movements, etc.

SECONDARY ALGORITHM This algorithm, as mentioned at the beginning, was separated from the primary one by its independent activations of the buttons, the button (13) being the one in charge of starting with a new process; neutralize the differential area (7), this is: As mentioned at the end of the explanation of the main algorithm, the LEDS show a symbolic value for the players, the activation of this algorithm is only responsible for reducing one unit to that symbolized value, it is the "neutralizer" of points. Technically it is responsible for the following: When the button (13) is activated, if the LED (7.1) is on, this will turn off and turn on the LED (7.2). If this LED is the one that was originally on, pressing the aforementioned button will turn the LED (7.3) off and on. If this last LED was on, pressing the button will turn off and not turn on any LED, this symbolically showed a "1" and after subtracting a unit, there would be a number to symbolize. The same would happen if the LED (7.4) was on, since it also symbolizes a "1" but for the other player. If the LED (7.6) was on, activating the button (13) would turn off this LED and turn on the LED (7.5), if it were on, it would turn off and turn on (7.4). Always leading a trend towards zero, to neutralize any of the three possible points of the players. If in any case there were several points accumulated, that is; several LEDs lit, when activating the button (13), to avoid confusion, all the LEDs would turn off. Once the above is described, we proceed to describe the flow diagram that includes the mentioned algorithms: First there is the reading of the sensors, which shows the position of the pieces inside the board. After this information is stored within the records of the same program, if this data informs that all sensors are activated, it means that there is no piece in the central panel and therefore will not turn on any LED of the central area (5). And vice versa, if all are deactivated, all the LEDs in the central area (5) will turn on. When you have only some sensors activated and others not, they will light only some LEDS in this area, always randomly, but of course, this number of activated sensors is stored inside another register to know the difference of sensors of a shift with respect to the another, that is; a start with respect to another beginning of this process. Once all this is done, the program is cycled by loading unpredictable values into the registers capable of altering the effects of random "random loading". Always waiting for another interruption, when INT1 arrives, it repeats everything again, and when it arrives the I NTO executes the described thing within the secondary algorithm.

THE BEST METHOD FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The material that is placed in the upper part of the solid structure (3), consists of the property of being translucent, materials such as acrylic or glass is the most suitable in addition to allowing the sliding of the pieces contained in it. This sheet, so to speak, allows visibility of the illumination of the LEDs (6), (7) and (9) placed on a printed circuit board (1), this well-designed electrical circuit also consists of sensors (8) located all together in the solid structure already mentioned.

The pieces that intervene directly with the board have a permanent magnet (10) at their base, which is detected by Hall effect sensors (8) soldered to the printed circuit (1). Due to the properties of this physical phenomenon, the pieces are detected within a certain area of the board, considered for this invention as a box. They are separated respectively (11) by the number of LEDs and sensors that the circuit contains. The location of the sensors determines the initial state of the pieces, for which the electrical system "knows" how many pieces are inside the main board (where the LEDs are) and therefore also identifies how many pieces are on the sensors, this information it is processed by the electrical circuit that contains a microcontroller and according to the algorithms chosen by the programmer, it allows a series of conditioned responses with the turning on and off of each one of the LEDS, all this activity is exploited in the system as rules of game or limitations of use.

The surface board should be considered as the main element of construction since this is based on any interaction between the player and the circuit, this must be a translucent material such as glass, acrylic or plastic. Such surface must be placed completely horizontal for an easy flow of the pieces, the board should cover the circuit board that contains the LEDS, because when placed upwards they will be able to manifest the lighting upwards where the observer player is supposed to be.

Once the translucent board has been created, where the flashes are displayed, the boxes must be marked in such a way that the LED of each one is centered, the space between them is very important since they determine the comfort of the movements, so when plotting the pictures delimited by the area of the board, squares and rights must be made to avoid confusion in the distribution of the pieces.

It is important to bear in mind that the game must be fair for the two participants, the areas of each one are supposed to be identical, without proposing favorable situations for any of them.

In the same way the sensors placed also in the lower part of the board, should be centered to facilitate the detection of the magnetic field produced by the permanent magnets of each piece, of course that each piece should have a permanent magnet in its base and that its Poles are oriented in a single direction, this is necessary for them to be sensed correctly. The sensors are not mandatory to be displayed with the translucent material, these can be covered with another material either a tapestry, an ornament, logo, etc.

For practical questions, the whole system was separated into two circuits, one where only the LEDs, sensors (8) and buttons (12) and (13) are contained, and another where the encapsulations, microcontroller (16), capacitors, resistors etc. The first circuit (1) is the one shown through the translucent board, that is, the main board where the interaction between parts, sensors (8) and LEDS will take place. This circuit is the largest, because the dimensions must be large enough to allow the movement of the pieces, since they are only a few millimeters away (only separated by the translucent material) in order to be detected by the sensors within the same circuit. The second circuit Figure 9, "upside down" but connected with the previous one with flat cable, is not visible to the player, but accessible to the technician who can open the lower part of the chassis (Figure 11). It is in this second circuit that the whole process of the invention is contained in itself, each of the pins of the microcontroller (16) contains its corresponding resistance value, so the current is controlled for each of the LEDs which will always request the flow corresponding to its luminous capacity, ie; to more current, more lighting. If it were desired to increase the number of boxes on the board, obviously the number of LEDs would also increase, in this way the ports of the microcontroller (16) should be multiplexed to allow the flow of more information. In the upper left part of Figure 13, there are two simple circuits (14) and (15) that could be included in the microcontroller (16), since it is a decades-long counter that only triggers a group in sequence of LEDs (four in this case), which are responsible for showing a type of movement in the main board, only this circuit is activated when the button (12) is pressed, which also serves as an interruption of the microcontroller (16) for Do the main processes. The dimensions of the board, which enclose the number of pieces, boxes, LEDs, sensors (8) etc., are controlled by the following condition: Figure 12 shows an overview of the main circuit (1) below the platform translucent that contains the pieces and dimensions of the board. The distribution of sensors and LEDs is shown, the marked boxes and the circles must be in perfect proportion for a good flow of the pieces. As shown in figure 12, the boxes delimited with a perpetual line represent the areas where the LEDs (5) and (7) are located, the boxes delimited with a pulsed line represent the areas where the sensors (8) are located with their corresponding indicators (9). The buttons represented with brittle line delimitation are shown next to this set of sensors and LEDs. All this representation of lines and circles are also the reference (11), which more generally represents the already visible lines of the board to allow the observer to distinguish the areas.

The entire figure 12 is the circuit (1), which is connected by means of a pair of connectors (17), flat cables (18) that communicate it to the other circuit (2), said separation of the circuits is shown in a more detailed in Figure 9, both must be separated to prevent their tracks from short circuiting each other, for this an insulating material (19) shown in the same figure 9 was implemented.

DESIGN RULES AND DIMENSIONS This model of the board can measure from 15 cm2 to 10 m2, the dimensions are irrelevant since it can be a portable device or a large system for a commercial establishment, what is important to recognize is that regardless of their dimensions, the number of squares on the board is proportional. This board is based on a construction of 4 X 4, 4 rows by 4 columns (red squares), that is; 16 LEDs that will light randomly to intricate the movement to 8 pieces, 4 of each player. 4 pieces that start at each end (blue area), area that contains the same number of rows or columns of the main board. The relationship is as fol: No. of rows = No. of columns (square main board) Number of LEDs = Number of squares per row X Number of squares per row. Total number of sensors on the board = 2 X Number of squares per row. If for example the board were 8X8 like the one in figure 14, 8 rows by 8 columns, there would be 8 sensors at each end, that is 2 times the number of rows, 16 sensors.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES Figure 1 represents the direction of the pieces of the two players, which must be introduced to the central area to achieve their goal is to reach the other end.

Figure 2 shows the area where the LEDs in the r part show the type of movement that the player will have, this is where a single LED will light to indicate in a representative way the direction of movement of his piece, this type of movement it is represented on one side of the same area, simulating a kind of electronic dice for the player. Figure 3 reveals the position of the only two buttons that control the system in a certain way, both activate independent subroutines that are controlled by the players. Figure 4 represents the area where the r part of the LEDs are lit randomly, simulating a kind of mines for each of the players' pieces. Figure 5 shows the area where the sensors are located in its r part capable of detecting the pieces. Figure 6 shows the area where at the bottom are the LEDs that turn on to indicate that advantage of points that players have when they lose pieces, the same figure represents the "obvious" position of both players. Figure 7 is the fchart developed to coordinate the processes of the system. Figure 8 is a conventional perspective of the board in general, with its majority of references describing each of the most important parts of the system. Figure 9 is an unmasking of the outer structure, to show the two independent circuits with their corresponding connections. The position of the insulating material (19) is also shown to prevent the two circuits from shorting. Figure 10 represents the thickness of the invention in general, which shows with a cross section the corresponding layers. Figure 11 is just the outer structure. Figure 12 represents the position of the circuit (1) with respect to the representation of the board itself, the position of the LEDs, sensors and buttons are shown. It is a top view of the board, where the bakelite of the circuit and the exterior structure are invisible, the copper tracks of the circuit that connect the visible components are observed.

Figure 13 is as if it were the r part, showing only the distribution of the circuit (2) with its corresponding components. Figure 14 is the example of a possible board, which are within a series of design standards mentioned above. Figure 15 shows the set of references of the areas and components within the general circuit of the whole invention.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE REFERENCES (1) .- Represents the circuit where you have the LEDs, sensors and buttons. (2) .- Represents the circuit that contains the rest of the components of the system. (3) .- It represents the smooth and translucent platform where the pieces will be placed. (4) .- Represents the structure that contains and protects the entire invention. (5) .- Represents the set of LEDs that form the central area. (6) .- Represents the set of LEDs that form the extreme areas. (7) .- Represents the set of LEDs that form the differential area. (8) .- Sensors. (9) .- LED indicators of the sensors. (10) .- Permanent magnet placed in the base of each of the pieces. (11) .- Limits of areas and boxes. (12) .- Main button. (13) .- Secondary button. (14) .- It represents the small circuit of the decades counter of the circuit (2). (15) .- It represents the small circuit of the clock that enables the microcontroller. (16) .- Microcontroller. (17) .- Connectors. (18) .- Flat cable. (19) .- Uniform insulating material.

NOTE: With reference to these figures, the board is formed on the outside by a solid structure (4), this can be made of plastic material, ceramic or even wood, because what matters basically is its firmness and assembly containment.

Claims (5)

REVINDICATIONS Having sufficiently described my invention, I consider as a novelty and therefore claim as my exclusive property, what is contained in the following clauses:

1. - Electronic board for board game, comprising two groups of pieces that have permanent magnets (10) in their base, a group for each player, said permanent magnets serve to be recognized by a series of magnetic field sensors (8) which individually detect the presence of a sliding piece on the board, which is characterized by comprising a translucent platform (3), divided into three areas (5), (6) and (7), located above all LEDs of the system, each LED of the area (5) coincides with a box which looks exactly on the visible LED. This platform allows to visualize the illumination of the LEDs that are under the areas (5), (6), (7), and also the LEDs of the magnetic sensors (9), which serve as indicators when the piece is detected . Both LEDS and sensors are controlled by an electronic circuit that is based on a microcontroller (16) of 8 bits and 4 ports, which has two interruptions that are activated with two external buttons (12) and (13).

2. - Electronic board for board game according to claim 1, further characterized in that the button (12) is responsible for activating the main interruption, once this is executed all the magnetic sensors (8) are read by the microcontroller ( 16), with the data read, the main algorithm processes them and results in random data that are manifested by turning on the LEDs of the central area (5), the amount of LEDs lit will depend on the number of pieces in this area , ie, the greater the number of pieces in the central area (5), the greater the number of LEDs that light up randomly within the same area (5). Also the button (12), is responsible for turning on one of the four LEDs of the extreme area (6), the ignition of this is random. In this way the piece is indicated as moving in the central area (5).

3. - Electronic board for board game according to claim 1, further characterized in that the button (13) once activated, is responsible for turning off one of the six LEDs of the differential area (7), if one of them is finds on, according to the secondary algorithm that processes the electronic system.

4. - Electronic board for board game according to claim 1, further characterized in that it is a system that is capable of detecting the movements of each piece in real time, responding thus with the activation and deactivation of the LEDS respectively.

5. - Electronic board for board game according to claim 1, which is also characterized in that the boxes that are in the central area (5), constitute rows and columns, forming a square of equal number of rows and columns, plus the number from LEDS within the area (5), is equal to: number of rows formed by squares squared, that is. No. of rows = No. of columns (square main board) Number of LEDs = Number of squares per row X Number of squares per row. And the number of sensors in the area (8) is divided into two groups which each equals one row, that is, the total number of sensors in the board = 2 X Number of squares per row.